Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Tweekums As this thriller opens two men meticulously preparing for a kidnapping. They soundproof and secure an empty flat before snatching their victim off the street, gagging and hooding her and taking her to the flat. The men are ex-cons Vic and Danny, she is the eponymous Alice Creed. Once they have her in the flat they chain her to a bed, cut her clothes off then take pictures of her. After putting new clothes on her they set about making their demands. They want two million pounds off her wealthy father and make it clear that if all their demands aren't met they will kill her. Inevitably tensions are high throughout and only get tenser as we learn more about the characters and their relationships.I've tried to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum as there are quite a few twists that benefit from knowing as little as possible; if possible even avoid watching the trailer as it gives away one of the twists. Thankfully all I knew about the film was what was written on the DVD box and that wasn't too much. Most of the film took place the confines of the flat but it still didn't feel theatrical rather than cinematic. The cast does a great job; Gemma Arterton does a brilliant job as Alice and Martin Compston and Eddie Marsan are great as Danny and Vic. As the end approaches things get so tense that I wondered if anybody would survive. Overall I'd certainly recommend this although it certainly won't be for everybody thanks to some fairly disturbing scenes.

grantss Good thriller-drama. Solid, innovative plot. Does try to cram too many twists in though, and the ending is a bit too trite and conventional. Less twists and a grittier ending would have made this almost perfect.Good direction by J Blakeson, on debut. No unnecessary scenes - you get the information you need, even if he drip-feeds it in via throw- away lines in dialogue.The cast consists of only three actors - Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston and Gemma Arterton - and they all give excellent performances. Eddie Marsan has mostly irritated me in the past, playing conservative, indecisive, fatherly roles. Here he plays a cold, ruthless, calculating hardened criminal, and does it extremely well.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a kind of tour de force for a crime thriller. Two men who are lovers, the young Martin Compston and the dominant older Eddie Marsan, kidnap the young woman who is the daughter of some filthy rich magnate and demand a quick ransom while they hold her captive -- shackled, hooded, and gagged with one of those BSM red balls -- in a shabby room.Those are the only three characters, and there are only two sets.It doesn't sound promising, does it? The girl, probably a virgin, screaming for help as the two brutes ravage her; the torment of the parents; the determination of the police; the recorded phone calls about the ransom; the argument about whether she should be left behind as a witness; bath tubs of gore.But no. The writers have squeezed every ounce of tension out of the story without abandoning those sparse assets. It answers interesting questions too. Suppose the bound, gagged, and hooded victim needs to use the toilet. One of the men brings her a bucket, but she signals frantically with her fingers -- number two. Can she "go" with some stranger watching her? Can't the stranger at least turn around? And when he does so, can't she whack him over the head with the empty bucket and grab his pistol? The answer is yes.Now the victim, Gemma Arterton, has the upper hand, but the second kidnapper may show up at any moment and -- well, what's a girl to do? Then, on top of that, the narrative gets more complicated, too complicated to explain. There are double crosses upon double crosses, so many that I forgot who was aligned with whom in the later intrigues.The script is fine for its genre, not poetic but effective. And the performances are of professional caliber. Gemma Arterton is attractive without being stunningly beautiful or so young as to invite the cheap sympathy we feel when a child is endangered. And she's no virgin either. She's wily as hell.In some ways the most sympathetic character is boyish Compston because he's the most naive. Everyone takes advantage of him despite (or because of) the fact that he's the only character who seems truly capable of love, even with reservations.The most impressive actor is Marsan. He's the authoritarian Loeb who orders Compston's Leopold around. And Marsan's appearance is striking. His forehead is slanted back and his features protrude at odd angles from his skull. He looks like he's wearing a fire plug on his shoulders.All of them prove themselves capable murder and, in the end, they've all demonstrated their capacity for taking the money and running away with it.It's a little like "Dial M For Murder," but more violent and less witty. None of the villains are nearly as suave and good-natured as Ray Milland. And the music here practically spells out "gravitas." There's not a smile in a cartload but it's precisely done.

runamokprods Extremely tense, beautifully shot, generally well (if not quite brilliantly) acted, this is a clever and effective exercise on making an exciting film on a tiny budget. Even though about 75% of this kidnapping tale takes place in a two room apartment, director/writer Blakeson finds enough effective and compelling ways to photograph his tiny set, and enough sharp plot twists and reveals that any claustrophobia becomes a plus not a problem. There are a few times when credulity is stretched, and a few plot turns that have that sense of being a 'clever twist' instead of something organic to the characters or the story (you can feel them as they're where the acting is less strong, you can see the actors strain to make them 'work'), but neither shortcoming is enough to keep this from being a highly entertaining, and even ultimately oddly touching nail-biter.